MAY 1, 2026 SPRING Reinforced spring recollections GREGORY MAISONVILLE Groundcover contributor A tea at Moka coffee house after Easter mass at St. Mary’s Student Parish has me in a pleasurable remembrance of yesterday’s merriment at Hash Bash. The “He has risen” philosophy ties in well with the buoyant atmosphere of business and the recreational bliss awarded now to tokers. Much alike to Christ’s early following, an underground wave of resistance has solidified for a superior society and negated the former mainstreamesque views of closed-mindedness. Hard not to notice the similarities of the clusters of followers today at church with the groups of tokers yesterday, all of whom wear the faces of expectancy for want of a notable difference in thought — dismissing the heavy-handedness of our society to the foils of yesteryear, and the building blocks of mercy and forgiveness laying claim to our constructive approach to a future merged with the earnest appreciation of our elder-taught timeless altruisms, albeit mixed with their deficiency of morality at times in the past. Like most people, spring is a very important time for me … March 17 celebrating my Irishness, the 22nd being my 10-year sobriety date from my drug of choice — alcohol; the 26th my 55th birthday; April 1 and the Artemis 2 launch to the moon; Hash Bash and Easter. All was incorporative of my individual specificities that define who and what I am in a mental pragmatic semblance of what my future holds from the melancholic to euphoric past. A typical example would be my substantive prayers for those astronauts making it safely into space, due to the nightmare of when a vice-principal knocked on the door of Mrs. Guest’s 11th grade French class to inform us of the tragedy that would shape our views on space exploration for decades to come. (Mrs. McAuliffe and crew will be with us always.) Now the recently launched Artemis is poised to irrevocably bind the younger generations to the magnitude of space exploration and colonization ... what a wonderful world, Louis Armstrong and Ray Bradbury would say. Back to the Hash Bash, where a drone about 200 feet to the northeast was seen as speaker after speaker filled the crowd with the problems of our forlorn federal government attitude towards any change, any despondency like the sentence of John Sinclair, quickly flitters off like the pigeons flying around from the rooftops or my first bumble bee of the season floating past. I’m perched on the ramp of Hatcher’s graduate library. The view is excellent, and after a joint the size of two fingers crammed into the large side of a conical tube is inhaled, a placative relaxation assumes control. Speakers of note were a handicapped woman who got the crowd in her grasp with a furor of freedoms mixed with some salty language that made me smile. The next, a man in a top hat and scarf who was clearly a staple of Hash Bash for years. “Why did it take our government 50 years to realize pot doesn’t kill anybody?” Sound question and a pupil of his I was. You do a lot of thinking high, and I could tell I was on good ground — ground covered before my birth. Even their footprints of fight and freedom still hold against the test of time's magnanimous hold. I lit a cigar, a luxury for a homeless man like me, careful not to send an ash on the people below like I did earlier. Then came my two high points of the day. First: a man called Tom Lavigne took the podium. He is a lawyer who currently spearheads the fight for marijuana legislation and acceptance. I immediately noticed his verbiage was prepared and insightful, and recollections of my own turmoils won or lost filled the fanciful mind I now participated in, as each of his fist pumps swayed those who remained to cheer GROUNDCOVER NEWS 15 and applaud. I hope someday to honor his speech and to fight with any society that displays authoritarian proclivities to settle human debate. Second was the jam band that I was unable to get the name of, but who lived up to the status of opening act of Hash Bash. Instantaneously I was whisked into a Deadhead feel of imaginary tiedyed shirts and dresses dancing in all the empty spots — a veritable Woodstock played out in my high but harmless mind. The singer gave quite a speech, holding up a small sequoia for testament to his belief in growth and renewal. I pranced mentally, and wobbled physically, LOL, a little with the music and scheme of things. In the middle of a very capturing groove of the fourth song, sprinkles of rain tingled my nose and alerted us that the looming dark cloud sneaking up from behind the library was going to have the final say … by the end of the song it was pouring. Many hung around since the cloudburst was over and gone in 20 minutes. So I put up my U-M blue and maize umbrella and struck out down the ramp, my confidence fully restored in the rogue fundamentals that made this country what it is. That all should fight for what you believe in so that peace may be attained through the salient stewards of equality, freedom of religion and person, and the spirit of what’s best for all and harmful to none.
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